Tragus orders second course of debt refinancing to plug high prices gap

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The economic picture may be improving, but the financial travails of one of
the high street’s biggest restaurant operators have laid bare the perils of
being seen as pricey when wage inflation is still weak.

Tragus Group, which owns the Café Rouge, Bella Italia and Strada chains, is
understood to be preparing to undergo a debt-for-equity swap under a
proposed restructuring of its estimated £240 million debt.

The need for a painful refinancing, less than two years after the last one,
suggests that trading at the group’s restaurants has remained difficult
after several years of declining like-for-like sales.